Money is rarely spent - especially significant amounts - unless a well-developed and substantiated argument can be delivered on why the proposed investment provides significant value to your organization. Corporate executives, officers, directors, site managers, seasoned engineers and sales professionals share their tips on how to effectively communicate the value of APM to upper management.
While we may not realize it, we all sell - attempt to convince someone to adopt our point-of-view - on a regular basis. While not everyone is a trained salesperson and we may not consider what we're doing as selling, we've all been involved in or witnessed a situation requiring the presentation of a business case to justify an expenditure. Why do some business cases succeed while others fail?
Fortunately, in asset intensive industries, if there is a viable idea, tool or service that adds value to the business, it really isn't a difficult sell. The hard work lies in getting the business case organized. What follows are some tips shared by corporate executives, officers, directors, site managers, seasoned engineers and sales professionals on how to effectively communicate your ideas to upper-management.
1. Understand what resonates with management
This is a matter of being "tuned-in." Consider what management is communicating to the organization and then consider the ways your work processes align with what is being said and the stated business requirements. How well does the outcome of your work align with business requirements? Is there an available tool or service which can be purchased to enhance work processes to help meet or exceed business requirements?
One professional engineer who was interviewed had drawn up a list of things that resonated with his management. At the top of the list was providing more time for maintenance planners to perform their core duties. He knew that whatever tools or processes he suggested which improved this area of work were a "slam-dunk" for management approval.
In discussions with senior executives the common message is - ideas that are centered on improving the business are going to be considered. Understanding what business concerns resonate loudest with the executive team is a matter of being tuned-in.
2. State the unresolved problem or limitation
Management may not always be aware of problems that can seriously limit successfully achieving business objectives. A scene from the movie Apollo 13 illustrates this point. After an explosion inside the lunar module, ground engineers begin brainstorming possible scenarios for quickly re-starting the crippled module's computer. In the midst of the free-for-all of ideas rose two simple words from an engineer with specific expertise involving the module's computer system - "twelve amps". The unresolved, immutable limitation was that if the starting sequence was not setup precisely, the amperage draw would exceed what was available in reserve power and the computer would not start.
Perhaps you have some special insight into a problem limiting your company's ability to produce cost-effectively and safely? The unresolved problem at your facility may be as simple as "twelve amps" or it may be substantially more complicated. However, a limitation is a limitation and if there are facts and data to support its existence, then you have the building blocks to make a case.
3. Dribble water on it first
A mining maintenance manager who has worked on both the vendor and buyer side of the heavy mining equipment industry advises - "Before you touch the hot iron, dribble a little water on it; you may be glad you didn't touch it."
Testing the acceptance of your idea early on can provide excellent feedback on its validity or need for adjustments. If you receive acceptance in the early stages of developing your idea you'll have accomplished two things - received validation and permission to continue at a relatively early stage of development and planted seeds with management helping to ensure your next meeting on the subject will be met with a warm audience.
4. Big projects require simple impact
When your audience loses sight of the value proposition, interest quickly evaporates. If you can't communicate the impact or value of your idea inside of thirty seconds, odds are you're not going to easily sell the bigger picture. People in senior management are intelligent and wise, but they can't drink from a fire hose!
The president of a solution provider in the gas compression industry shared that in the early days they assumed that the vice presidents they were selling to understood and appreciated the infinite detail presented to them during the initial sales presentation. Later, the company discovered that their detailed sales approach had been counterproductive.
Phil McKinney, host of the Killer Innovations podcast, shares his 10/20/30 rule - build your presentation with no more than TEN slides, take no longer than TWENTY minutes to present it, and use a THIRTY point font - minimum - on your slides. If your message is more complicated than what can be contained within these guidelines, you will likely not be able to sell your idea.
5. Value proposition
In his series of books on complex selling, Jeff Thull discusses what he describes as the "value spectrum." The idea is simple - value is delivered along a spectrum represented by product, process and performance; the further along the spectrum toward the performance range, the more you incrementally develop value and the higher the return your idea proposes.1
Perhaps you are trying to sell management a product or service based solely on product characteristics - availability, price or quality. Looking at this from an investment perspective, the total value of return is minimal. However, if the product or service you want to invest in improves a business process, then the level of consideration is elevated to include cost of goods sold, production efficiency, customer satisfaction and other value drivers. Now, consider the value of the product or service you're selling according to the level of performance improvement it can leverage. If the idea you're selling can improve your company's performance, your idea delivers the maximum value return.
Imagine that you're a reliability engineer in a power generating station selling a proposal to upper management that will improve fleet capacity by a factor of 1% - every additional 1000 Megawatts produced would translate into a cost savings of $5M resulting in an additional $1M of profit. Additional benefits of your idea would produce the recovery of lost megawatts, re-distribution of capital and lowered production costs. Your idea makes the company improve its performance. This is the sort of total value return that executives look for and give attention to.
Conclusion:
Some of us may not have been born salespeople, but through (1) listening to what management signals as important, (2) identifying areas for improvement aligned with areas of importance, and (3) succinctly communicating the value proposition of our ideas, we can all become effective messengers of value-generating ideas for our companies.
About the author:
Marc LaPlante, Meridium Solution Specialist, leverages his 15 years of reliability field experience in the design of asset performance management solutions to meet customer specific goals and requirements. Marc earned his diploma in Chemical Engineering Technology from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in 1992 and continued with his professional development through studies at the Centre for Maintenance Optimization and Reliability Engineering at the University of Toronto.
Looking for more information on developing your own APM proposal for upper management?
Click here to download "Quantifying the ROI of an Asset Performance Management Program" and learn how to communicate the major economic benefits of an asset performance program to upper management.
Click here to download "Plan to Improve Plant Reliability" and learn six steps for adding performance value to your organization through asset performance management.
1 Thull, J. "The Prime Solution", Dearborn Trade Books, Chicago IL, 2005.
